My letter to the devs to make Zero Company the true sandbox experience its potential has

I’m going to be brutally honest here, but only because I really want this game to be THE flagship game of modern turn based tactical experiences. Don’t take this personally devs, but if you read this I really hope you take this onboard and improve the game. So, that said…

Zero Company could have been the game to be on par and even surpass xcom in terms of tactical gameplay and depth, but alas it doesn’t even come close currently. My biggest gripe is the complete absence of any kind of pre-combat phase during operations. I loved how in xcom (xcom2: war of the chosen), you would deploy in a mission out of combat and could spend several turns positioning your troops around the map to avoid patrols and establish optimal ambushing locations. You could even complete certain missions without being detected at all if you played it well. There was also the risk of you being spotted first and ambushed instead which made gameplay so much more interesting and replayable than here in zcom. Operations in this game just always play out the same with combat straight from the get go with no tactical set ups before hand. Makes the replayability so much worse compared to xcom.

My next gripe is the lack of weapons and weapon customisation. There’s thousands of interesting weapons, but they choose to instead have like 4 weapons with different skins. Why not make each weapon have their own unique stats and effects?

It really feels like this game came out half baked, while the other half of its potential was left in the dust. For example, the 3rd person sections in the story operations are so on rails and linear it’s so out of place and tbh, bad. I love the 3rd person gameplay in the command centre area, but in operations it really shouldn’t have sacrificed the pre-combat phase of xcom for this pointless 3rd person on rails segment (that’s only for certain story missions).

And that brings me to my biggest gripe. This game could have been THE sandbox tactical turn based game, the game to be on the same level as complexity and freedom as xcom, but the devs chose to sacrifice that to make the game a more linear story focus where you play it once and that’s it. 40 cycles is such a surprising choice to me when they could have instead expanded the scope to make the game feel like you’re a company in a truly evolving and dynamic galactic war.

If I were the developers, I would have made the game have unlimited cycles, and have us conduct operations and set up republic influence throughout the whole galaxy. The coil would instead have a progress metre which would increase 1 stage every few cycles, and if it gets to 10 stages they win the game and you lose. However, on the galactic map there are missions you can undertake which set back the coil’s stages by a step or two, allowing you to delay their plans while building up your contacts, company cells, and strength throughout the galaxy. You would have enough time to develop proper bonds with your members and recruit more powerful allies, assigning them to take command of their own companies across the galaxy. This way the gameplay becomes much more sandbox like and free for the player to do what they want, while still having that story element present.

I would remove the terrible 3rd person on rails segments and replace it with an actual pre-combat phase where your squad is deployed out of combat in a fog of war map. You can then spend turns moving them around and exploring the map, avoiding enemy patrols and positioning them to perform ambushes that can takeout these patrols without detection. However, if you misplay, you could accidentally run into a patrol and be spotted, which then begins combat with the enemy taking their turns first, which adds a new level of risk and tactical gameplay. You could also complete certain missions entirely avoiding combat if you are sneaky and tactical enough.

I would also add a hardcore difficulty which completely removes the downing aspects and make it so if your squad members go down to 0 HP, depending on what hit them, they would either go into an unconscious bleed out state or die instantly. The only way to save them would be to use a medic class’s medkit to stabilise and bring an unconscious squad member back to a conscious state with 1 hp, where you can then heal them up with stims. If you don’t have a medic on your team, you can still save them, but have to carry them to an early extraction within 5 turns or so before they bleed out and die. If they are downed by extreme damage or a critical hit they are killed instantly. Having this 2 lives revive mechanic makes the game far too easy imo, even on expert difficulty

Currently, the game is a lot more casual than I expected, as the game was hyped up to be a difficult game where you could lose everything in one miscalculation. However, it’s actually really hard to lose, and some mechanics are super op for you, like the melee rushing. You can win most engagement just by using melee to move and insta kill enemies by knocking them off ledges or stunning them. Theres really no downside to doing it, because if your character goes down afterwards they can just be revived the next turn and do the same thing again and again. There needs to be a lot of balance updates to have each action be a proper risk vs reward. Additionally, I would add a hunker down action where you can spend 1 AP for a character in cover to get low and end their turn, greatly increasing their defense for that turn at the cost of doing anything else. Useful for characters in sticky situations who you want to try and avoid getting downed until the next turn.

I understand the game can’t be exactly like xcom, as you might as well just play xcom with mods, but the way the game currently is it doesn’t feel like an equal contender to the xcom series in terms of tactical complexity and depth. This is a much more casual and linear story experience, fit for a single playthrough, but has very poor replayability and staying power. There’s a reason why people still play and praise xcom to this day, because it has excellent replayability and sandbox gameplay.

Overall, to anyone looking for an experience on the levels of xcom, you won’t get that here. I give it a 6/10 currently and will play it through, but I really don’t see it bringing me back to play again and again, as the design currently doesn’t support that sandbox playstyle. I’ll probably go back to xcom 2 Star Wars mods, which makes me sad to say because I really wanted an xcom 2 but actual Star Wars. Sadness